After his podium heroics at the 2024 Sao Paulo GP, Pierre Gasly set himself up for his first consecutive podium finish after qualifying P3 for the Las Vegas GP. However, his dreams of at least scoring a big haul of points for the Enstone-based team came crashing down as the #10 driver was forced to retire from the Grand Prix.
Just as soon the pack was sorting itself out with their first pit stops, the Frenchman came onto his team radio to complain about a loss of power. His engineer was prompt enough to inform him that they could not see any problems on the data.
It was being suggested momentarily that Gasly might have hit the pit limiter button on his steering wheel by mistake. But foreshadowing the Renault Group’s decision to end their F1 power unit program, the 28-year-old’s Renault PU went off with a spectacular puff of smoke.
Gasly said he had no power.
The pit wall said it was fine.
It was in fact not fine.#F1 | #LasVegasGP pic.twitter.com/omrCnU40MF— Ryan Erik King (@RyanErikKing) November 24, 2024
Luckily for Alpine and Gasly, he was close enough to the pit lane to come right in and retire the car without suffering much thermal damage. That said, not only does this DNF (Gasly’s third of 2024) end the Frenchman’s race but probably also Alpine’s charge to finish P6 in the Constructors’ this season.
After the race in Brazil, the French team had catapulted themselves from P9 to P6. Haas and RB, however, are only three and five points away from the Enstone-based team, respectively. At the time of writing, Nico Hulkenberg is running P9 and Yuki Tsunoda is in P8 — meaning if things stand as they are, they get ever so closer to edge Alpine out.
If they slip down the pecking order by the end of the season, as per F1’s prize pool distribution system, Alpine could lose over $17 million.
